MTNL staffer caught stealing gold

An alert jewellery shopkeeper in Mulund caught a woman employee of MTNL stealing gold ornaments weighing 275gm from his shop on Sunday. The shopkeeper subsequently handed her over to the Mulund police who later raided her Matunga flat and recovered 18kg silver ornaments valued at Rs10 lakh.

“The 50-year-old accused, Rekha Vinayak Wamonkar, works as a clerk at the Prabhadevi-Dadar (West) office of MTNL. Her husband Vinayak Wamonkar had died two years ago. Rekha, who lives with her two grown-up children in Matunga, has been indulging in similar thefts for the past five years,” said JJ Jadhav, senior police inspector of Mulund police station.

The incident took place at Manasi Jewellers in Mulund (West) at around 11.30 am on Sunday.
Posing as a customer, Rekha visited the shop and asked its owner Manish Kumar Jain to show gold ornaments. While checking out the ornaments, she diverted the attention of Jain and his two employees, and kept some of the ornaments in her wallet.

Jain suspected foul play and called the police. Then women cops checked her wallet and found the stolen ornaments. Rekha revealed that she was a habitual offender. Later, a police team conducted searches at her Matunga flat and recovered stolen silver ornaments weighing 18kg, said Jadhav.

@dayanand_kamath